Brett Davern and Al Unser Jr. share a champagne shower following the 38th running of the pre/celebrity race at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Saturday, April 12, 2014. (Photo by Chuck Bennett/Long Beach Press-Telegram)

Grand Prix of Long Beach

LONG BEACH >> When Brett Davern was starting his acting career, one of his first jobs was a guest appearance on “CSI: Miami.” The episode was filmed in Long Beach, so the then-16-year-old visited the city to film his short scenes.

On Saturday afternoon, Davern was back in Long Beach, this time in a starring role, as he won the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Pro/Celebrity race, leading from start to finish and taking the checkered flag with a time of 18:04.525.

“I got second last year, and I really wanted to come back and win it,” Davern said with an empty magnum of champagne sitting beside him at the post-race news conference. “After last year I wore their email out begging to get back in. It’s just so much fun.”

Davern was the pole-winner from Friday’s qualifying race and was able to get out quickly on Saturday, holding off a late charge from actors Max Thieriot and Adrien Brody, who filled out the rest of the podium.

For the first half of the race, it looked like Davern was just taking a few casual practice laps with nobody in the rearview mirror.

“I really wish it had been a five-lap race,” he joked afterward.

But the chase pack caught up to him, in part because of a heavily debris-laden course, and for the last few laps, Thieriot and Brody were right on him. Brody was so close he thought that he had passed Davern.

“I actually thought the battle with Max was for first,” he admitted. “Afterward my girlfriend told me I was third and I said, ‘Well, who’s keeping score?’”

Thieriot and Brody changed positions during the final lap, and when Davern briefly lost control, it looked like they might pass him as he slid sideways beneath the Tecate bridge.

“That was a real tank slapper,” he said. “I was so sideways I actually saw Max straight on for a second — somehow I held on.”

After he straightened it out, he was able to finish the ninth and 10th laps with relative ease to win. As is usually the case with the Pro/Celebrity race, not every driver was so lucky, however.

Corbin Bleu of “High School Musical” fame had one of the hardest crashes the race has seen in the last few years, after he got overly aggressive in the sixth lap. Just a few seconds prior, he had attempted a pass on the hairpin and only barely managed to avoid contact. Then, coming into turn one on the sixth lap, he picked up too much speed and was unable to make the turn. He plowed head first into the tires, hitting them hard enough to rock the retaining wall back.

Local Olympian sprinter Carmelita Jeter was also the victim of a wipeout when she got loose on the back straight and went into the wall on the ninth lap. She said afterward that she was headed in for some Cryo treatment to make sure nothing got sore or tight after the accident.

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There were enough crashes and no-passing yellow flags popping up throughout the race to mess with drivers’ attention.

“I think at one point I came around the corner and there was a tow truck to my left, and Corbin Bleu’s car on my right,” laughed Davern afterward. “It was a wild race.”

Unser Jr. delights fans

As fun as the celebrities were, the best racing of the day came courtesy of the red “Pro” category cars, driven by Al Unser Jr., Kyle Petty and last year’s celebrity winner, Rutledge Wood.

Unser has long been nicknamed the “King of the Beach” for his success at Long Beach, and he added another chapter to that already storied history by winning the pro category on Saturday, taking fifth overall with a time of 18:10.640. It was Unser’s third time winning the pro category of the Pro/Celebrity race, along with 1985 and 2009 — and of course, he won the big race on Sunday a record six times as well, including four straight years from 1988-1991.

“It was exciting,” said Unser of his racelong battle with Petty. “It was the most fun I’ve had here at Long Beach.”

He referred to Petty as the first driver to ever really keep him honest in the Pro/Celebrity race.

“We banged and bumped each other and finally he did pass me, but I was able to pass him back,” Unser said. “He drove it right into my door on the last turn. It was exciting.”

A truly exciting moment for the fans came during the post-race, when Wood goaded Unser and Petty into spinning doughnuts on Pine Avenue, to a standing ovation. Wood, a television show host and gear-head, knew he never stood a chance against two storied drivers like Unser and Petty, but he said that moment was special for him, as well as for the fans.

“We did synchronized doughnuts,” he said. “Then Al came up and told me he’d never done doughnuts before — that kind of made me feel like I’d won something.”

With Davern returning to the site of his acting roots to claim a trophy, and the King of the Beach winning a third Pro/Celeb race (and ninth overall), it was a win for the fans in Long Beach as well.

About the Author

Mike Guardabascio is an award-winning sportswriter who's been covering the Long Beach sports world since 2008. A Long Beach native, he's a member of the CIF Southern Section Media Advisory Committee and the California Prep Sportswriters Association. A two-time winner of the Century Club's Keith Cordes Award for best promotion of the city through sports, he is also the author of a book, Football in Long Beach, available through the History Press. Reach the author at mike.guardabascio@langnews.com
or follow Mike on Twitter: @Guardabascio.